Second trip to DC

I have been looking through my pictures and cannot believe how many pictures I have YET to post!  We visited my friend, Steph, in Baltimore months ago and I still haven't posted these!  Seriously where does time go?  We knew before we moved to Chicago we wanted to make one more trip out to see her but the last time we went it was freeeeezing, so Dan really wanted to wait until it was warmer, and I am SO glad we did.  We got to walk around Steph's cute neighbhorhood, eat outside, visit the aquarium, go on a boat ride (paddle boat that is :) ) and meet Batman.  It was such a great weekend and we definitely will miss living only 3 hours from this city and this wonderful friend! 

Obama's plan was landing at the white house and people were RUNNING like crazy people to get pictures lol

Chicago So Far :)

I have to apologize for my lack of blogging lately!  Between looking for a home, moving from New York, updating adoption items, being pregnant and taking unexpected naps, and closing on a fixer upper to which we are already researching every little detail that needs to be done, naps tend to be overtaken by lots of the above items as opposed to blogging.  But I am still taking pictures, don't worry.  And they will be posted, even if they all happened a month before I post them!   And in typical summer Cinadr fashion, we have been traveling quite a bit these past couple weekends so I'll share those pictures soon as well.  We have much to be thankful for- and I told Dan we need to soak in this summer living in a temporary townhome where we don't have any yard work to do!  (Even though this past weekend when we went back to New York to officially move all of our things Dan spent the whole morning "taming the jungle" that was our back and front yard lol)

Happy Tuesday, Friends!

Jake's treat at starbucks is the "strawberry milkshake" lol

Dan had a week off before he started his new job and we soaked up as much time with him as we could :)

We are SUPER into swords and Pirates right now...

Don't worry, jake was actually playing tackle with Claire and Brian, even though it looks like he is staring at me wondering why I'm taking his picture and not helping him lol

The library here is awesome- we definitely hang out there a lot :)

To the mom with the screaming child

For some reason this last month has been one of the most humbling for me as a mom.  On two separate occasions we have had public meltdowns that on a scale of one to ten have seriously rivaled a 9.  Since then, I've often thought about how I could write one of those letters titled, "an open letter to the mom with the screaming child at target" because I am now that mom.  And I have felt the stares and judgments, and I feel like there is no amount of apologies I can say to passerbys to make the situation look any better. 

And sadly I used to be that person, with no parenting experience might I add, who didn't believe the best and made critical judgments.  Who just assumed that parent didn't have their child under control and that if that parent had a good discipline regimen public meltdowns wouldn't happen.  Oh my word was I so wrong.  And clearly I never had been in a public place with a toddler when they were not getting their way.  In all honesty, I am so ashamed that any of those thoughts crossed my mind.  Even though I didn't know the details of the situation I witnessed back in the day, more than likely that parent had actually made the right / best decision.  They most likely said "no" to buying that toy or candy bar their child grabbed in the check out line.  And most likely it was a parent sticking their ground and being consistent that led to disappointment for the child.  But I wouldn't have known that.  Instead, I secretly vowed in my mind I would be a "better parent."

This past month I have on more than one occasion questioned everything I've read or learned about parenting.  I even resorted to google and found some, how do I put this kindly, interesting discipline theories.  And then I finally just cried out to God (probably should have done this before resorting to google, but no one's perfect :)) and humbly admitted that I felt like I had no idea what I was doing, and I didn't have it all together, and that I desperately needed His grace and patience in my life, especially when it came to discipline.

I started reading over all my parenting notes I have taken from some great biblical resources and realized a lot (which I'll share below) but the main thing that stood out to me was that disciplining to change the heart is much harder than disciplining to instill fear of man or fear of consequences.  The easy route is to try to instill a fear of the punishment instead of viewing discipline as an opportunity to come along side our kids and teach and restore them.  And also, it's not easy in the heat of the moment, especially in public, to view this tantrum as a teachable moment as opposed to a personal attack.  Trust me.  When your kid is yelling and people are watching my first thought is not, "what a great teachable moment!  Let's remain calm and think through how I can make the most of this opportunity."  Instead, I usually think, what is the quickest way to stop the yelling and get out of here as quickly as possible!"

Needless to say, I have a lot to learn.  And this parenting thing can be so so good.  And so so humbling.  All within a span of 5 minutes of each other.  So carry on brave mama's.  Hang in there.  Give yourself grace, seek biblical wisdom, and cling to God's promises. And if I could, I would buy you a coffee as we navigate this beautiful journey called motherhood :)

Here are some other good notes and reminders that I read over in my journal these past couple weeks that I pray can be an encouragement to you!

Purpose of discipline: To train, equip, restore, and come along side

• Love of Jesus changes hearts, not fear and guilt
• View disobedience as a chance to reach hearts instead of seeing it as a personal attack
• Goal is to identify sin and point kids to Jesus, NOT force to obey and instill fear of consequence

Explain sin: choosing my way over God's way or making something more important than God, and explain how sin leads to pain and disappointment

Establish expectations, and know hot buttons.  Pick battles and be consistent

• Focus on the big things like obeying without whining, thankfulness, respect, and kind words

Ask questions, don't necessarily say what they did wrong all the time, but ask if there could have been a better way to speak to you (as an example)

You choose: [good choice = good outcome; bad choice = consequence]

Affirm emotions

Encourage, don't always be on "sin" patrol

• be specific in what you are praising your kids for

Model how much we need Jesus and as parents, we aren't perfect either

Last get together with some friends in New York :)

These last few weeks have been a little busy- so I have to apologize for the delay in blogging.  Between some unexpected naps (eek!) and looking for homes and working on (hopefully) selling our previous home, things have been busy around here!  I've actually had these pictures uploaded for some time, it has just taken me a couple weeks to actually write this post :)

It doesn't seem like it's been almost month since we have been in New York!  Thankfully because of social media and technology, I still feel *somewhat* connected to our old friends.  We have had some FaceTime conversations (even though FaceTiming with three year olds hasn't been going as well as expected lol), emailing, texting back and forth, and seeing updates on social media with our old friends which is so nice :)  These pictures are from a couple of our friends who threw us a little "goodbye Party."  It was so sweet of them to cook out, get some gifts, and also get a pinata- even if it did end up falling off the rope. The kids ended up wacking it on the ground and didn't know the difference lol  

It will be so nice to see everyone one more time when we go to pack up our things in a couple weeks :)

Pink or Blue?

When we found out we were pregnant with Jake Dan really wanted the gender to be a surprise when he was born.  Although I am a planner by nature, we were in a one bedroom apartment in Chicago, and we couldn't prepare a nursery so I agreed that we would wait. But this time around, I really wanted to find out by doing something fun- and Dan agreed that we could :)  And we decided to go the cupcake route- having a bakery frost some cupcakes blue or pink!

Honestly, this pregnancy has been different than Jake - I'll spare you most of the details, but I felt the way I was carrying and the fact that I had a little bit of morning sickness maybe signified that we were having a girl (with Jake I almost prayed that I felt sick so I would know I was pregnant since I felt so normal!  I now know how lucky I was :) ).  I still could totally see us having a family of all boys, I don't know if it was growing up with brothers or what, but I feel completely comfortable with a family full of boys, but for some reason I thought just maybe this little baby was a girl.

So the day of the ultrasound the technician filled out our little card and off we went to the cupcake shop!  The bakers headed to the back to get the cupcakes ready and while we were waiting one them came from the back of the shop and started talking to us.  She asked us what we thought we were having and I said I had this odd feeling it could be a girl but I obviously really wasn't sure.  She then proceeded to talk about how girls are so much drama and how she has a boy and a girl and the girl is definitely way more work so if she could do it over again she would rather have all boys.  I couldn't help but bite my lip and just laugh awkwardly as I reiterated we would be thrilled either way.

After we got our cupcake box and headed outside I immediately turned to Dan and told him that we had to be having a boy- I mean, why else would you talk about girls like that if we were having a girl!?  Dan shrugged his shoulders and said she probably didn't look, but I was pretty sure she looked at the card.  I mean, if I worked there I totally would have gone to the back and looked!  Either way, we headed to the park with our three little cupcakes (one for each of us) and set up the tripod and the timer and slowly opened the box!  And you can see what happened below :)

this was after we saw the cupcakes inside the box :)

So Jake has officially told us he is going to teach this little boy everything he knows about baseball and Mickey Mouse.  And we couldn't be more excited to have some more boys in our little family :)

And now I know for sure that baker looked at the card :)